Karlheinz Böhm

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Karlheinz Böhm, (Karl, or Carl, Boehm), Austrian actor and humanitarian (born March 16, 1928, Darmstadt, Ger.—died May 29, 2014, Grödig, Austria), charmed German-speaking movie audiences as a romantic lead but faced an outcry over his portrayal of a murderous cameraman in Peeping Tom (1960) before devoting the last three decades of his life to charity. After making his acting debut on the Vienna stage, he went on to star in more than 40 films. His popularity surged following his role as Emperor Franz Joseph I in Sissi (1955) and its two sequels. His most memorable performance, however, came in Michael Powell’s controversial Peeping Tom; Böhm played a serial killer, scarred by his father’s psychological abuse, who uses a spiked camera tripod to murder women while filming their dying moments and eventually commits suicide with the same perverse weapon. Rejected as distasteful upon its release, the film jeopardized the careers of both Powell and Böhm. Despite its initial condemnation, the film was later lauded as a masterful psychological thriller, with Böhm’s performance receiving acclaim for its haunting exploration of voyeurism. He rebranded himself in Hollywood through accessible appearances as Jacob Grimm in The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962) and as Beethoven in Walt Disney’sThe Magnificent Rebel (1962) before he went to Germany to star in more-serious films directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Böhm became increasingly politically active, and after a TV game-show appearance provided him with donations to combat poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, he left acting and founded (1981) a charity to support development in Ethiopia, where he was named an honorary citizen in 2003.